Texas Floods Raise Concerns Over NWS Budget And Staffing Cuts
Texas Floods Increase Concerns Over National Weather Service Budget And Staffing Cuts
Over the holiday weekend, tragedy struck in Texas when flash floods killed at least 94 people, with many more still missing. As the devastation from the Texas floods continues to grow, so too have concerns over the Trump administration’s budget and staffing cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS).
According to NPR, the NWS lost 600 employees earlier this year as part of widespread layoffs and buyouts throughout the federal government. Several key positions in NWS’s Austin/San Antonio office are currently vacant, including the warning coordination meteorologist. The warning coordination meteorologist was the key liaison to public safety officials, providing key information about severe weather to emergency officials. Paul Yura, the former warning coordination meteorologist, left earlier this year after taking a buyout from the Trump administration.
On Thursday afternoon, the NWS issued a flood watch for several Texas counties, predicting “pockets of heavy rain.” By 1:15 a.m. on Friday, the NWS issued a “considerable flash flood warning,” which would have sent alerts to mobile devices. The agency upgraded the warning to a “flash flood emergency” by 4:06 a.m. The NWS says the “emergency” designation is “exceedingly rare” and only used in situations where human life is at risk. Several survivors report receiving no advance warning of the floods until it was far too late. The downpour raised the Guadalupe River 26 feet in only 45 minutes.
Experts believe the Texas flood warnings were delivered as quickly as possible, with the concerns revolving around how widespread the messaging was.
“The forecasting was good. The warnings were good. It’s always about getting people to receive the message,” Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist based in Wisconsin, told NBC. “It appears that is one of the biggest contributors — that last mile.”
As of this writing, 111 people died during the Texas floods, with 27 of the confirmed deaths coming from Camp Mystic, a Christian girls’ camp along a river in Kerr County. There are 173 others still missing as volunteers and rescue crews search through the debris. The devastation and loss of life from the Texas floods have spurred renewed scrutiny over staffing shortages at the NWS.
During an appearance on CNN, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) called for an investigation to see if staffing shortages played any role in delaying the response. When host Dana Bash asked Castro whether the shortages played a role in response time, Castro said he did not “think it’s helpful to have missing key personnel from the National Weather Service not in place to help prevent these tragedies.”
“I don’t want to sit here and say conclusively that that was the case, but I do think that it should be investigated,” Castro added.
Conversely, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told reporters he didn’t believe the staffing shortages played a role in how devastating the Texas floods were. “This is not a time for partisan finger-pointing and attacks,” Cruz said. “There will be a time to find out what could have been done differently. My hope is, in time, we learn some lessons to implement the next time there is a flood.”
Apparently, Trump didn’t get the memo, defaulting to partisan finger-pointing when questioned by reporters about the Texas floods. “That water situation, that all is, and that was really the Biden setup,” Trump said. “But I wouldn’t blame Biden for it, either. I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe.”
Amid these growing concerns, Trump remains adamant about the firings. When asked by a reporter if the administration planned to rehire any of the fired meteorologists, he responded, “I would think not. This was a thing that happened in seconds. Nobody expected it. Nobody saw it.”
In addition to the staffing woes, Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” cuts hundreds of millions of dollars from the Federal Emergency Response Agency (FEMA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the NWS’s parent organization. The budget completely eliminates funding for the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research and the National Severe Storms Lab, both of which are essential in monitoring storms and atmospheric weather events.
With budget cuts at key research labs, the ongoing dismantling of FEMA, and the EPA at war with itself, the Texas floods appear as a bellwether for how the Trump administration handles disaster response and warnings.
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